Week 7: (10-15-2008 to 10-21-2008)
We found out that people in the ESW club are working on system to pasteurize liquids through a solar trough, thus providing good drinking water.
We also found out that one can roast coffee almost all the way in a solar cooker (the final bit has to be done with wood). The slow, low heat roast doesn't burn at all and makes really good coffee.
Work Completed:
We received communication from Mujeres Solares- they have come up with a solution for glass breaking- we may still want to examine their solution in detail at some point.
We brainstormed about cooking more food (only three options for focusing sunlight: point, line, and plane).
We got phone cards so that Yamalet can call Nimia (with Mujeres Solares).
We began re-writing our proposal.
Work Planned:
Based on the new information we received from Nimia about what problems they face, we need to revise our plans for the semester (and thus re-write our proposal).
Objectives We Decided On:
The first things we should work on are the paint peeling problem, making and testing a bigger box cooker, and doing an order-of-magnitude carbon analysis for the box cooker.
If there is time, we should test the trough cooker (we can easily adapt the one being built for pasteurizing to cooking), then perhaps implement their solution to glass breaking problem and test that.
We need to test the hypothesis that bigger oven= cook more food faster (commonly help belief by Mujeres Solares).
build a bigger oven:
determine a size
spec the ovens
materials list
purchase materials
assemble
test
We need to find out what kind of paint/metal (lots of details) they have, and find out proper preparation of underlying metal.
We can ask them about carbon information, but we won't get enough information to do a rigorous analysis until we have first-hand information. We can do a rudimentary analysis with assumptions, and get more information when we visit to do a better carbon budget.
We need to find out how they fixed the glass breaking problem, and also contact University of Dayton (they are working on the same problem).
If we have time, we should implement their solution (Mujeres), and find out how, why it works, and perhaps how to make it better.